Grimm Up North: A DCI Harry Grimm Crime Novel by David J. Gatward

Author:David J. Gatward [Gatward, David J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Weirdstone Publishing
Published: 2020-07-08T06:00:00+00:00

Harry was surprised to find that they were first on the scene. Usually he’d arrive at something like this and the place would already be busy as hell, not only with PCSOs and uniformed officers, but detectives and the crime scene investigation team, or CSI as it was better known, as well. Not that the real-life CSI was anything like the shiny darkness portrayed on television. The team he was used to back in Bristol was run by a woman with all the charm and warmth of a walk-in freezer stuffed full with meat hung from the kind of hooks made famous by the film A Texas Chainsaw Massacre. She was cold, brutally so at times, and seemed to regard everyone, even God, Harry suspected, as beneath her. He wondered what he would be getting this time and also when they would arrive. So he asked Jim.

‘CSI? Not a clue. Don’t think I’ve ever seen them called out if I’m honest.’

‘Seriously?’

‘Couldn’t tell you the last time anything like this happened here,’ Jim said.

Harry walked on, edging closer to the edge of the dark water before them. ‘We don’t know what happened so let’s not go jumping to conclusions. Who put the call in?’

‘Couple of wild swimmers apparently,’ Jim said. ‘They should still be here, right?’

‘Should be is a whole world away from actually are,’ said Harry. ‘I’ve lost count of the number of times people have buggered off from a crime scene after reporting it. Seem to forget that they can actually be of help to an investigation.’

The sound of a car door opening then slamming shut cut through the air. It was followed by footsteps. Eventually a figure came into view. It was a woman wearing what looked at first to be a huge wizard’s cloak, but at closer inspection was some kind of large waterproof, fleece-lined robe which stretched all the way to her ankles. ‘Are you the police?’

‘That we are,’ Harry said. ‘And you are?’

‘The person who reported it . . . her . . . the body.’

Harry heard the shock still wild and alive in the woman’s voice. ‘Perhaps you could show us where it is, then, madam, if that’s okay?’

‘Do I have to?’

‘Well, it will stop us making a mess of a potential crime scene by tripping over it,’ Harry said. ‘And it’ll save time as well. We need to secure and preserve the site.’

The woman, Harry could tell, didn’t seem entirely sure that she wanted to comply with his request.

‘Perhaps you can just show us?’ Jim asked.

The woman nodded and raised an arm to point towards some thick brush just up from the lake and lying between it and the road which ran along its edge.

‘We usually get changed in there, you see, or at least close by, to give a bit of extra cover. Not that anyone’s going to see us, not now. But anyway, that’s where we found her. When we came in from our swim.’

Harry was astonished. ‘You mean you’ve already

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